Emboldened cricket fan Swati Jha asks the colourful Yuvraj Singh what he likes doing best apart from cricket and gets a mere smiley.
But at least it's a reply, something Indian fans would trade an arm or a leg for, because she's one of the 5,550 tweeters who follow Yuvraj Singh's posts on social networking site Twitter. And Yuvraj, perhaps the most tech-savvy and well-networked in the national cricket team, has not only been remarkably active on Twitter, but has learnt to use frequent tweets and prompt tweet-replies to keep in touch with fans.
"It has been a great way to connect with my fans," Yuvraj told MiD DAY recently. A devoted Tweeter, he says, "As kids, we wanted to know what our icons did off the field and found out only through media reports. But with these social networking sites, stars can now interact with fans directly... without the fear of being misquoted or misrepresented. It's definitely a safe and direct way to interact with fans."
The flamboyant left-hander gets suggestions, requests and some overwhelming tweets too, he says. One fan told him he'd watched his ICC World Cup T20 innings 500 times. "Wow, that's a lot of times," came the southpaw's quick response.
Yuvraj manages to respond to his fans' tweets three to four times a week. "Time is a big factor, but I have my Blackberry," says Yuvraj, who follows the activities of a smattering of Bollywood tweeters including Preity Zinta, Karan Johar, Gul Panag, Neil Nitin Mukesh and A R Rahman, as well as international sportspersons like Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Rafael Nadal and Sania Mirza.
The response from his fans has been fabulous. "They keep coming back to me," he says. "When I started, I had about 100 fans. The register has increased to thousands now."
Yuvraj also plays big brother to fans, occasionally. One fan tweeted about bunking classes to watch his superstar play.
The star bat's response was mildly admonishing. "Even we bunked school and college to watch games. Obviously it is not right," Yuvraj says. "I tell my fans on Twitter to do the right thing." Advertisement
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